


I Wanna Cross Your Borders

by thefairfleming



Category: The White Princess (TV)
Genre: F/M, Modern AU, but I have delivered on, the 1960s AU no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 11:48:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12035265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefairfleming/pseuds/thefairfleming
Summary: So I’ve been fiddling with a 1960s Modern Royals AU for Lizzie/Henry wherein she’s a princess/It Girl, he was the heir to some bullshit kingdom like Monaco (I’M SORRY MONACO BUT YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE) that’s suddenly restored its monarchy, ARRANGED MARRIAGE AHOY, and anyway, that’s all the context I feel is needed for this, their Wedding Night Fic.





	I Wanna Cross Your Borders

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Joseph's "Canyon."

“I’m not going to sleep with you tonight.”

As far as wedding night statements go, it’s probably not  _ the _ most unromantic. Lizzie knows enough about the marriages in various royal families to assume it ranks somewhere in the middle, probably.

But it certainly kills the mood in their stateroom if Henry’s raised eyebrows are anything to go by.

And there had been quite the mood set. Champagne on ice, vases of roses, candles… Lizzie had even put on her wedding night lingerie, the soft cream silk nightgown she picked last week, covered by a matching robe. But she isn’t wearing it for  _ him.  _ She only put it on because it’s actually the most substantial piece of nightwear she has for her honeymoon. Her own fault, really, for letting Cecily arrange her trousseau. 

Although she can’t be sorry for wearing it, not when she knows what a fetching picture she must make in it. How satisfying it is to dangle her own desirability in front of him, then remind him he has no claim to it.

Standing next to the bed, Lizzie picks up one of the dozens of pillows, fluffing it exuberantly while Henry studies her from his spot near the champagne bucket.

Finally, he shrugs, reaching for the bottle of wine and one of the flutes. He doesn’t offer her a drink, probably because he has all the manners one would expect of a man who spent most of his life on a sheep station in the middle of nowhere before fate placed a kingdom- and her- in his lap.

“As you wish,” he says easily, and Lizzie pauses in her pillow-fluffing.

Not the reaction she’d expected, but then what about him has been expected? His very  _ presence _ still feels like a surprise, and not a good one. 

“It’s just that it’s not the Middle Ages, for heaven’s sake,” she says, tossing the pillow back on the bed and picking up another one. “No one is hanging a sheet out the window tomorrow to prove we’ve consummated things. So I don’t really see the need.”

“And I said that was fine, but if you’d like to offer up more reasons why we shouldn’t fuck tonight, be my guest.”

Scowling, Lizzie looks over at him. He’s still standing there by the table, one hand braced on it, the other holding his glass, one foot crossed over the other. 

Watching her.

So she’ll give him something to look at.

She drops the pillow, then sinks to the mattress, sitting primly at the edge for a moment before sighing and letting her hand slide across the bedspread, eventually reclining on her side, head propped in her hand as though she were interminably bored.

“You can still sleep here, of course,” she says, shifting slightly, knowing her robe is gaping open over the deep neckline of her nightgown. 

He doesn’t say anything, the only sound the hum of the ship’s engines, and when he turns to pour himself more champagne, shadows play over his cheekbones, emphasizing what a truly lovely profile he has. He’d cut his hair and shaved before the wedding, and there’s no sign of the little gold hoop that had both irritated and intrigued her on their first meeting, but he’s a little more rumpled now, a little less stiffly pressed. Jacket gone, bow tie missing, several buttons undone, sleeves rolled up, it’s as though he had shed his armor somehow.

Which ironically makes him more dangerous in her eyes.

Not quite as dangerous as the look he’s giving her now, that odd mix of appraising and wary, as though he’s trying to suss something out. She’s only seen it a few times so far- only known him for a matter of hours if she adds it up, really- but it bothers her all the same, and she does her best to look bored and unaffected, taking a deep breath and stretching, briefly studying the ceiling

At last, he lifts the hand still holding the champagne flute and points at her. “You think I should be happy,” he says, and she narrows her eyes at him.

“I don’t think of you at all.”

But he’s still pointing, smiling slightly as though he’s got her, which is doubly irksome.

“You think that because you’re beautiful and a princess, I should be doing cartwheels, Thanking my lucky stars for landing myself such a wife.”  
Rolling her eyes, Lizzie sits up. “Like I said, I don’t _think-_ ,”  
“You think you’re a perk,” he goes on, his expression is so satisfied her palm aches to smack it from his face.

“And you are beautiful,” he acknowledges. “And highly born and very, very...well-kept, let’s say.”

Henry takes a long swallow of wine, but his eyes never leave her, and when he lowers the glass, she sees his Adam’s apple move as he looks at her there in her peignoir.

In their bed.

“And desirable,” he admits, voice gone lower.

Then he starts to cross back to the bed again, and Lizzie sits up straighter, fingers curled around the edge of the mattress, her spine stiff, chin lifted. Her heart is hammering, and she’s not exactly sure why. She’s not afraid of him- there’s nothing in him that’s suggested violence for all his rough manners and obvious dislike of her-so it makes no sense for her to suddenly feel her pulse thundering, her breath coming faster.

No sense at all.

He stops, his legs brushing her knees, and looks down at her.

Lizzie only lifts her chin higher. That makes him smirk, though, and he takes another sip of wine.

“But let me assure you,” he says when he’s drained the glass, the flute dangling from his fingers at his side. “You’re just another part of this. Another responsibility. Another duty. Another thing I didn’t want, but am told I must accept.  So for all your silk gowns and lovely manners and perfect tits, you, _Princess Elizabeth_ , are just another pain in my ass.”  
With that, he goes to step back, but Lizzie is already standing up, shucking off her robe angrily, the movements jerky.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she tells him, not missing the genuine surprise on his face as her robe pools to the floor and he looks at her in her whisper-thin nightgown. “We might as well get this over with.”

Henry’s free hand clenches into a fist at his side, and his eyes are practically devouring her, but he shakes his head. “You don’t want this,” he says. “I’ve just wounded your pride.”

He has, more than she would’ve thought him capable of, but that’s not the only reason she’s decided to consummate their union after all. 

It’s that furious as she is- at him, at her family, at this farce- something has sparked between them, and Lizzie has always been too curious, too eager to chase down new feelings, new experiences, for her own good.  

She’s never felt anything remotely like this, this tension between them, the feeling that a storm is brewing every time they’re in the same room, and suddenly, she desperately wants to know where that feeling leads.

He’s still stepping back even though his hands are shaking, so Lizzie movies forward, letting the strap of her nightgown slip from one shoulder, the silk clinging to the curve of her breast.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she tells him, and then she slides one hand around the back of his neck, pulling his face to hers.

They kissed in the church. Perfunctory, dry, a sealing of a pact, signing of a contract, nothing more. And for a moment, Lizzie thinks this kiss might be the same because he goes so still, his lips pliant, but not moving.

Then, finally, he makes this...sound somewhere deep in his throat. Lizzie hears the muted thump of the champagne flute dropping to the carpet, and then his hands are on her face, and he’s suddenly kissing her back. Truly kissing her, nothing perfunctory about it, and if she’d thought her heart was racing before, it’s nothing to the way it seems to leap in her chest now.

When Lizzie’s calves hit the bed, she knows this is already out of her hands. She’d wanted to take control, to remind him that he  _ was _ lucky he’d married her, that there were thousands of men who’d kill to have her in their bed tonight, that she was not just some distasteful  _ duty _ to be sighed over.

But now his tongue slides along hers, his hands move down to rest against her back as he lowers her to the mattress, and it’s all Lizzie can do not to writhe against him like a cat in heat.

Her legs instinctively open as he settles over her, and it would annoy her how well they seem to fit together if it didn’t feel so good even through the fabric of his trousers and the silk of her gown. So she does move a little now, circling her hips in a way that has him pulling back from their kiss to suck in a deep breath.

“Christ,” he mutters, his hand coming up to catch her chin, tilting her head down so that he can look in her eyes. They’re both nearly panting by now, and his pupils are blown wide as are hers, she has no doubt. 

“You’re sure?” he asks anyway, and in answer, Lizzie lifts her head, capturing his lower lip between her teeth, then soothing the bite with her tongue.

It’s apparently answer enough because with a shuddering sigh, Henry kisses her again, his fingers already playing along her hip, digging into the silk there and gathering up the skirt of her nightgown.

Lizzie has never gone to bed with a man she didn’t love, much less one she doesn’t even  _ like _ , but as Henry’s fingers slide between her legs, finding her wetter than she thinks she’s ever been, she wonders if there’s something to be said for the practice. 

Or maybe it’s just him.

That thought is too irritating to contemplate though, especially now when he’s touching her like that, and Lizzie pushes it away even as she gasps, her nails digging into the back of his neck. 

He winces slightly, but doesn’t stop touching her, not until she’s shaking, pleasure making her toes curl against the duvet, and when she comes, his name spills from her lips over and over again.

Which makes him look too unbearably smug for her comfort.

Still breathing hard, Lizzie lifts her hands, lying them flat against his chest and pushing so that he rolls onto his back. His chest rises and falls rapidly, too, and his eyes never leave her as she scrambles to her knees, her fingers clumsy on the fastening of his trousers. She can feel that gaze on her even as she keeps her own eyes firmly to her task because she has the strangest feeling that meeting his eyes right now might change something between them, might give whatever it is happening between them right now more weight than either of them want.

However, once she’s leaned down and taken him into her mouth, she can’t resist glancing up. His eyes are closed now, his head back against the pillow, neck arched, any trace of that self-satisfied smirk gone, and Lizzie’s own lips curve around his cock even as desire starts coiling in her belly again.

Maybe that’s why she doesn’t complain when he pulls her away after only a few moments, sitting up even as she moves to straddle his lap, the two of them almost as cross-purposes as they fumble to get the necessary fabric out of the way. Lizzie can hear her breath sawing in and out of her lungs, can feel his heart pounding as she braces one hand against his chest, and when she finally slides down on him, they both gasp.

She still can’t look at him as she rocks on his lap, keeping her eyes closed, her head back, giving herself over to what she’s feeling rather than any pesky thoughts. It’s easier that way, her body overruling her brain, and when he tugs at her nightgown, taking one nipple into his mouth, she doesn’t even bother to make a caustic joke about how he seems to enjoy her “perfect tits” well enough now.

It doesn’t take long for either of them, and Lizzie sags against him, trying to catch her breath in the aftermath of her second orgasm in only a few minutes. She can feel Henry’s hand still clutching her hip, his breath warm against the upper swell of her breast. There’s the slightest sheen of sweat on his forehead, and Lizzie is suddenly aware of how they must look, him still in most of the tuxedo he wore at the wedding, her half in and half out of her nightgown. 

Disentangling themselves takes some doing, especially since they’re both committed to not looking at one another, but they manage it, and Lizzie flops back to the pillows with a sigh as Henry sits on the edge of the bed, his back to her.

“Well,” Lizzie says, trying to sound as casual and careless as she can. “There’s that sorted at least.”

Henry doesn’t reply, but she sees his shoulders tense slightly before he pushes up off the bed and walks to the ensuite bathroom.

The door clicks closed behind him and only then does Lizzie allow her breezy expression to fall, clapping a hand over her eyes with a barely suppressed groan. She can’t bring herself to regret what just happened- after the stress of the wedding, not to mention the weeks of planning beforehand, she certainly deserved an orgasm or two- but she can’t help but feel that she should’ve just turned out the lights and gone to bed rather than bait him into….whatever it was that just happened between them,

She hears the sink turn off in the bathroom, and immediately lifts up on one elbow to turn off the lamp, but that only makes the candles still burning look softer and more romantic, and with a muttered curse, she gets out of the bed, hurrying over to blow them all out before he comes out.

Lizzie has just dashed back into the bed, covers thrown over her, when the bathroom door opens, spilling a rectangle of light out into the stateroom.

She holds herself still, wondering if he’ll say anything.

Wondering if, when he gets in the bed, he’ll touch her again.

Wondering if she wants him to.

But Henry is quiet as he flips off the bathroom light, and she can hear the rustle of his clothes as he finishes getting undressed there in the dark.

When he slides underneath the covers on his side of the bed, he only murmurs, “Goodnight, Lizzie,” before turning over. 

She tells herself she’s relieved.


End file.
